Toward the end of the Woodstock Festival I was forcing myself to stay awake for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young when a stranger approached and asked me to open my mouth. I complied and he threw something inside. “What’s that?” I said. “Acid” he replied. I was unmoved, and let excitement take hold. I’d tried what was advertised as acid before, and it was pretty underwhelming. There was no indication this would be any different.
Subsequent video proof to the contrary, CSNY was pretty outstanding. I was no longer exhausted and prepared by a set by Paul Butterfield. I wasn’t familiar with the songs but I knew everything played by next act, the satirical revivalists Sha Na Na. The were a real nostalgia act, but the songs they were satirizing were only a few years at the time.
The sun rose, and I was involved in the old ritual known as “peaking.” Jimi Hendrix arrived fronting a band twice the size of the three-piece Experience, but everyone else was superfluous. He was the only one you could really hear. Hendrix, dressed in white, strolls up to the mike and says “we meet again” a reference to his appearance in Monterey two years earlier. As was the practice then, the majority of his set was either unreleased or unfamiliar.
Flash forward forty years. Recently I told this story to an acquaintance, who reacted with a curt “Did this really happen, or is this something you dreamed up?” It gave me a start, and almost kicked into the familiar “I-went-to-Woodstock-and-you-didn’t” arrogance that has been part of my arsenal for 40 years, but stopped suddenly.
“You know,” I said. “I’m not really sure.”
NEXT: Repackaging’s not what it used to be
